‘VC Chains’ Lead DeFi TVL Growth

Despite the market’s apathy towards “low-float, high FDV” tokens, blockchain ecosystems known for venture capital (VC) investment are bucking the market downtrend with significant growth.

Over the last 30 days, Layer 1 ecosystems Sei, Sui, and Aptos have all experienced total value locked (TVL) growth of over 20%. Sei boasted the largest gain with a 58% increase to $125 million from $79 million, Sui grew 23% to $663 million, and Aptos is up 21% to $435 million.

The growth spurt places Sei at a new all-time high in TVL and leads Sui back to within 12% of its previous all-time high. Meanwhile, Aptos is 15% off its all-time high of $508 million.

SEI DeFi TVL Hits New All-time High

Sei’s TVL growth is potentially driven by a series of ongoing incentive programs.

OKX is running a $750,000 incentives program with Sei-based DeFi lending protocol, Yei Finance, and Jellyverse, an ecosystem with a DEX, staking, and synthetic assets, has an ongoing incentive partnership with Frax Finance. Yei Finance has also partnered with SiloStake, Sei’s largest liquid staking protocol, to incentivize deposits of its liquid staking token (LST), iSEI.

As a result of these programs, Yei Finance’s TVL is up 60% in the last week, and SiloStake’s TVL is up 25% in the same period.

The ecosystem’s 30-day growth is also assisted by the DeFi market’s recovery from August 5, dubbed by some as the modern “Black Monday” when Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell by 12% in a single day, taking the entire crypto market down with it.

The TVL growth is trending independent of token price, indicating fresh capital may be entering the ecosystem. Chain TVL metrics often move in tandem with the native token price, as a sharp increase or decrease in the token price directly affects the valuation of the assets on the chain.

While Sei’s TVL is up nearly 60% in 30 days, the SEI token is down 6% in the same timeframe.